Blood Ties

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘Come!’ cried Otetian. ‘The deer have it in their nostrils. Come!’

  He began to run, Tagay and all the warriors following. Almost immediately, there was a crashing, a large shape leaping up from a bush a hundred paces ahead. Then there were three, five, a dozen.

  ‘Halloo!’ Tagay cried, giving tongue as he would have in the royal chases near Paris. Then he listened to the cries of the Tahontaenrat around him and tried to emulate them.

  The ground started to descend, while slopes on either side rose, the valley narrowing swiftly. The deer were coming clearer in sight, bunching together. There had to be fifty, at least, of varying sizes. Some, seeming to sense the danger ahead, paused, half-turned back; but the cries of the hunters, the still gusting smoke, drove them on.

  Tagay and Otetian, the swiftest runners, were ahead, and getting closer together as the valley tapered. They were just a few paces apart, leaping bushes at a bound, yelling with excitement.

  A huge shape lurched to a halt before them, turned. It was a big buck, its spread of antlers huge above its reddish, shaggy chest. It lowered its head as they ran at it side by side. Otetian had an arrow strung, even as he ran. He let it fly and it struck the deer’s antler’s, glanced off into a tree. The buck snorted, then made off, not down the valley but to the side down a barely visible path.

  ‘Tagay. Follow it, it’s yours,’ Otetian cried. ‘I have hunted here before. That path leads to a stream. You can kill it as it swims. Go!’

  They split apart, Otetian running straight on, driving the herd, Tagay fumbling for an arrow. The path was tiny, full of roots. Once he tripped, staggered, didn’t quite fall. He ran on, as the cries faded behind him.

  The path narrowed still further, then widened again as it reached a small stream. This too grew larger and he was running along its banks, his feet slapping between the clear, fresh marks of hooves. Then the dense foliage thinned and he was in a clearing.

  The stag was waiting at its centre. Ten paces behind it, there was a small waterfall into a pool below. The beast stood, its thick red coat heaving, plastered with mud, foam flecked. As Tagay emerged into the clearing, it snorted, turned toward the drop. He could see the animal hesitate. Then the magnificent antlers swung back and lowered.

  He is a warrior, Tagay thought, and he chooses to stand and fight.

  The arrow was notched on the string. Tagay pulled it back to full stretch, feeling the power latent within even this smaller weapon. He looked at the flint head that had been narrowed down to a tapered point, ideal for the deer hunt, for the short range kill; looked beyond it to the stag. Into the stag’s eyes. It was the first deer he had seen since rejoining the Tahontaenrat, the people of the Deer. He saw now why they chose to name themselves after such a beast. He was magnificent. And trapped, his land in flames. Much like the people named for him.

  He lowered his bow, let the tension in the string sag. ‘Go, brother,’ he said. ‘We will have meat enough for our feast without you.’

  The stag did not move, its eyes remaining fixed on him.

  ‘Go!’ Tagay shouted, stepping forward, waving his arms.

  The stag turned, ran, bent its legs, leapt. As Tagay moved forward, he heard the splash and by the time he reached the ledge above the pool, the deer was swimming strongly downstream, toward the open water.

  The sounds of the hunt, which had faded, returned to him now. He heard the human cries, some still driving the animals on, some the shouts of triumph. He heard the whine of strings released, of arrows flying, the thud of impact, the animal squeal of agony and fear. Then he heard another sound. It was familiar to him and it should not have been there. And it changed all the other sounds in an instant.

  He heard the explosion of a Spanish musket.

  Gianni Rombaud laid the musket down still smoking, and reached into his crossbelt to pull out the first of his wheelock pistols. His mother had taught him how to use the larger weapon and he had inherited her thirst for a target. One of these ‘Deer People’ had just discovered that. He hoped two more would soon find that he was just as good with a pistol.

  Killing savages. They were as bad, worse, than the Jews he’d hunted through the streets of Rome. At least the Christian shared some common stories with the Jew. But these were heathen, worshipping their pagan gods. The English Jesuit wanted to bring them to the cross through Christ’s love, he had even begun his mission in the short time they had spent with the tattooed ones. But Gianni knew that the cross alone was never enough. You had to wield the sword as well. Or, in his case, the pistol.

  It was harder to find a target now. On the valley floor below him, it was a mass of bodies. Wounded deer, hooves flailing in the air, antlers raking the ground. Wounded men, though they did not survive their injuries for long. His native allies had shot their fire sticks to no effect, despite the days he’d spent teaching them the skill. All except Black Snake, who had found a victim for his lead ball, who seemed to have a joy in the weapon equal to Gianni’s own. Now he and his warriors were down there, with stone tomahawk and bone knife. Effective, he had to admit, at such close quarters. Plus, they outnumbered these Deer People at least three to one.

  He watched Black Snake run down a fleeing warrior, knock him to the ground, stab, then bend over him. A moment later, an arm was thrust upwards, a lump of flesh and bloodied hair held aloft in triumph.

  Scalps, they call them. Trophies, Gianni thought. Not unlike the collection of yarmulkes I left with the Grey Wolves back in Rome.

  He was content to watch the slaughter now. Black Snake had said that, in normal warfare, they might take some prisoners but they would not today. There must be no risk of any returning to the enemy camp and telling of his actions, not until the final act of betrayal when the Tattooed Nundawaono went to war in overwhelming strength. The last of their allies were gathering, it was nearly time. The morning after the full moon, they said. Until then, all prisoners would die.

  All save one. When he’d slipped to their rendezvous in the night, Black Snake had confirmed that the Hunter of the Sunrise was with them as he had promised he would be, the week before at the camp. His men were under orders to take him alive. The Fire Stick Warrior wanted him. He had promised much for him.

  Oh yes, thought Gianni. I look forward to meeting the man who stole my sister, who made her bring the mark of my family’s shame to this land. He lost me in Paris. He will not lose me here.

  Suddenly, on the fringes of the mayhem, he saw another target. This enemy had just killed the two warriors who had rushed at him. He was tall, standing proudly, waiting for more.

  Pride before the fall. Gianni smiled, raising his gun.

  The closer he came, the worse the screaming of deer and men. The gunfire had ceased in the time it had taken him to run back along the stream path. He could no longer make out the song of arrows in flight. But the sound of blows, given and received, was unmistakable.

  He’d come at a run at first; now, with the conflict taking place just the other side of the line of brush fence they’d erected only that morning, he slowed, made for a small gap. His bow still pulled back to full tension, he swung it to the side, leaned his face into the opening.

  Into a nightmare. Deer were stampeding back down the valley, fleeing the carnage. Many had arrows protruding from them, blood streaming down their flanks. Though they tried to avoid them, hooves clashed with bodies rolling over and over on the ground. Bodies of their human brothers, the Tahontaenrat, the Deer people.

  A man ran into view, two warriors with crimson lines across their bodies in close pursuit, almost on him, hands reaching for his long hair braid. The man dropped suddenly, straight down and the closest pursuer was too near to avoid him, falling hard. In an instant the crouched warrior rose up, a bone knife rising ahead of him, the second pursuer running onto it, taking it in the chest. The warrior pulled it out, turned, bent to the man who had fallen, who was struggling to his feet, jerked him up, slashed it across his throat, let him fall. Strangely, it w
as only when the dead man dropped away that Tagay saw the arm that held the knife, saw a distinctive ring of teeth marks on the elbow.

  ‘Otetian!’ Tagay screamed, stepping into the gap between the fences.

  He turned. ‘Little Bear!’ he shouted, a fierce smile coming to his face. Then all time slowed as Otetian raised his knife in triumph, in greeting, before, almost languidly stumbling forward. And it was only after a hole opened slowly outwards in Otetian’s side, as if some small creature was burrowing its way out, that Tagay heard the shot. Looking up, he saw gunsmoke rising from the valley side no more than thirty paces away.

  ‘Otetian!’

  He was moving forward then, time returning to its frantic speed. Another tattooed warrior ran toward the man now sinking to his knees and there was no time to think or aim. Tagay loosed his arrow and it took the man in the shoulder, knocking him backwards.

  Then he was beside the stricken warrior, his arms under him. ‘Come! Quick!’

  Otetian rose, a hand clutched to his side, blood squirting through the fingers. He half-turned back to the carnage.

  ‘No! Run, Otetian, run.’

  He began to propel the wounded man down the valley, away, following the deer that ran and leapt before them. There was shouting behind, another pistol shot that snapped a branch by Tagay’s head. After a few paces, Otetian shook Tagay off, began to run on his own, at first weaving a little, then stronger and straighter. The two men hit a stride and fled down the valley.

  They did not need to glance back. Arrows flew around them, thumped into the trunks of trees, shrieked by their ears. Soon there were less and less, though the shouting continued, they were still the quarry in a chase. But the two best runners of the Tahontaenrat were gaining ground on their enemy.

  ‘Hear me, Tagay …’

  ‘No talk! Run. We must get to the canoes.’

  ‘You must get to them.’ Tagay heard the bubbling in the tall warrior’s throat, saw, from the side of his vision, the redness spat out onto the ground. ‘I should have stayed and died there with my brothers. I only came with you to tell you …’

  He stumbled. Tagay glanced down, saw the blood staining the warrior’s breech cloth, running down his thighs.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Otetian grimaced, then picked up the pace again. A ragged breath, blood at his lips. ‘Black Snake betrayed us … led us into the trap … tell them. You must live so you can tell our people.’

  Otetian slowed, so Tagay did too. From behind them, the shouting increased. ‘No! Keep going. You can win this race, Little Bear … for you truly are faster than me.’ A shadow of a smile came to the red-stained lips. ‘You understand that it is only because I am about to die that I admit this.’ The smile departed. ‘Now go! I need my breath to sing my death song and this conversation tires me. Go!’

  He stopped, turned, knife in one hand, ironwood club in the other. ‘See me, dogs that skulk under the hill,’ he sang. ‘See me and fear. For I am Otetian, the Red Shirt of the Bear clan. Come, feel the touch of my claw.’

  Tagay kept going, increasing his speed till he was running full out. He could not pace himself here. The men who followed him were not trying to beat him, but kill him.

  Behind him he heard the grate of cutting bone on bone, the thump of a club striking home. There was a shout of pain, a loud cry of ‘Bear’, the triumph clear in it, then nothing. All noise ceased and he was running, alone and fast through a forest, down a path that led to a river. Ahead, the sun was low, its beams coursing though the foliage, lighting the avenue of spruce and cedar down which he ran. Soon he was glimpsing water between the trees and the earth under his feet was harder, studded with pebbles. In another hundred strides he burst onto the beach where they had left the canoes. They were as they had been, drawn up and inverted on the shoreline, twenty paces before him. And in the midst of them stood a man with tattoos over his body.

  Tagay could not stop running now. Not even when the man snatched up his bow, released his arrow. A stone made Tagay stumble and that stone saved him because the arrow passed over his shoulder while the stumble continued. Tagay hit the man at nearly his fullest speed, a sprawling run, head hard into the centre of the man’s chest. Both bodies tumbled backwards, Tagay’s weight on top, shoving the man down into the shallows of the river. There was a jarring thud and the man went instantly limp under him. Looking beneath the man’s head, he saw a sharp rock, thrust up like a pyramid. He used it to push himself up and when he brought his hand away, it was covered in blood.

  The body floated in the shallows, bumping into other rocks. Tagay turned to the canoes, grabbed one and placed it on the water, throwing two cedar paddles into it. Then he heard the cries of warriors approaching on the path. They would be there in moments, and he would be offshore, alone, trying to paddle a craft he didn’t understand; he had proved inept enough at it the night before, coming to this island.

  He pushed the boat ahead of him into the water. It caught in an eddy, then suddenly shot out into the stream. As he threw himself under one of the upturned canoes, he caught a glimpse of the other one entering the main river, disappearing downstream round the fold of land that made the bay. In another moment, feet crunched onto the pebbles of the beach.

  ‘He has killed Hosahaho. And a canoe is missing. Count them and you will see. We came with eight.’

  The voice was unmistakable. The man whose moccasined feet Tagay could see in the gap between the upturned canoe and beach was Black Snake. Though he had spent years amongst the Deer people, he had retained the harsher accent of the people of his birth.

  Other feet, a dozen pairs, were in view, some bare, some swathed in deer skin. But the man who spoke next had square-heeled boots. Eight weeks before Tagay had heard those boots slapping on cobble stones, for the wearer had stalked him through the alleys of Paris. And the language the man spoke was the one spoken in that city.

  ‘He who escapes is the one you promised would fall to my knife alone. Had you not better pursue him if you are to keep the bargain?’ said Gianni Rombaud.

  The words were translated by a third voice. Tagay heard Black Snake spit, then say, ‘He is impatient, this Young Dog, and likes to command. Tell him what I tell the others, to make him happy.’

  Black Snake then ordered four of his warriors to take two of the canoes and catch the fugitive. Tagay shrunk into himself as he waited for his cover to be ripped away. But he heard the sounds of other craft being launched on either side of him.

  ‘Tell him that I saw this Tagay paddle and he does so like a woman and will not get far. They will catch him and bring him to your knife’s edge at our village.’

  The words, more or less, were rendered into French. At the same time, the canoe just next to Tagay’s was inverted and its bow placed in the water.

  ‘And where does Black Snake go?’ The French came again. ‘To bring me the woman as you promised? Remember, she must be brought before she buries her Oki at the full moon. Otherwise he cannot have all the gifts I promised him.’ Black Snake, of all the Tattoed savages, had displayed the keenest interest in learning of the new weaponery. He had sat, silent and fascinated while Gianni brought a Falcon, one of the ship’s small cannon, ashore and began to rig it in the front of a rowboat.

  The translation was greeted with the sound of more spitting. ‘Tell him I go to the village of our enemy, where I will still be greeted as a brother. Tell him what makes him happy – that I will capture his sister and her powerful Oki and bring them to him before the full moon. And I will persuade the people of the Deer that it is safest to stay in their palisades and wait – till all our tribe and allies are gathered and they attack the sunrise after the full moon.’ The canoe was launched and Black Snake added from the water. ‘But do not tell him the truth – that I have seen his sister’s legs and felt her breasts and hunger for the rest that was denied me. So I will take what I hunger for, and when I have done, I will kill her and eat her heart and steal her six-fingered Oki. And so I wi
ll have her witch’s power. Do not tell him that, because I want to watch his face when he sees her long black hair, tied to the shaft of my war lance. And when he has seen this, when I have taken the big fire stick he has promised me, I will kill him too.’

  Black Snake, the man who began to put some of his words into French, all the warriors, laughed. Tagay ground his face into the shale of the beach, using the pain of sharp stones to distract him from the terrible urge he felt to leap from his hiding place and attack. But he listened still, as the man who promised to bring disaster to all those he loved paddled away, while those who remained discussed what had to be done next. It seemed that two more of the Deer people had escaped the slaughter. They were being hunted and those on the beach would join in that hunt – for it was very important that none escaped to warn of Black Snake’s treachery.

  ‘Shall we leave someone here to guard these?’ a voice asked as a foot kicked Tagay’s shelter.

  It was the translator who answered. ‘It is better that we hunt together. Hosahaho has found out that these deer people still have antlers to gore us with.’ There was a spattering of laughter. ‘Let us break in the bottom of their craft so if they come back here they cannot use them. Then we can hunt them down in our own time.’

  There were grunts of assent. Immediately, Tagay heard the sound of tearing bark and the next moment a rock broke through the fragile skin of his shelter, crashing into the stones a hand’s breadth from his face. He tensed, looked up through the head-sized gash to the pale sky above. The thrower was just in the process of turning away, satisfied with his aim. Tagay saw fair skin, dark hair and gleaming eyes, half the face that emerged from a lace collar.